
Class _J2LcS//_ 

Book ^W? 59 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE NEW (GERMAN) TESTAMENT 



THE NEW (GERMAN) 
TESTAMENT 

SOME TEXTS AND A COMMENTARY 



BY 



ANTHONY HOPE HAWKINS 




D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
NEW YORK 1915 



-»■ 



6* 



COPYRIGHT, igiSt 

By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 



Copyright, 1914, by Star Company 



Copyright, 1914, by The Tribune Association 



FEB 12 1915 



! CI A391717 

0/ 



CONTENTS 
I 

PAGE 

THE BLESSINGS OP — WAR ....... 7 

II 

great Britain's blunder 21 

III 

PAPER BULWARKS 39 

IV 
EMPIRE — AND LIBERTY? 55 



THE NEW 
(GERMAN) TESTAMENT 

I 

THE BLESSINGS OF— WAR 

WE have all been on the wrong tack — 
we, the nations, great and small — who 
have counted ourselves civilized and Christian ; 
the great and populous nations who have 
worked for peace and often imposed it by diplo- 
macy; the numerically weak nations who have 
accepted peace as a permanent and honorable 
condition of their independent life. 

Lamentably wrong have our statesmen been, 
with their efforts after peace, their Hague 
Conferences, Arbitration Treaties, Arbitration 
Commissions, prohibition of armaments on the 
Great Lakes of North America, and so forth. 
Lamentably wrong our Churches, with their 

7 



THE NEW (GERMAN) TESTAMENT 

ministers preaching peace and praying for it, 
with their congregations in their millions 
breathing the same prayer to the Throne of 
God. And how pitiable to think that we have 
deluded even our little children into lisping 
prayers for peace and into conceiving of the 
august and gracious figure of the Founder of 
their religion as the Prince of Peace ! 

We have indeed recognized that peace is not 
to be purchased at any and every price, that 
we must fight in the cause of national inde- 
pendence, or vital interest, or dear honor, go- 
ing indeed so far as sometimes to fight merely 
because we promised to — a quixotic proceeding 
in the sincerity of which it is well-nigh impos- 
sible to believe ! But we have been at a wrong 
angle of vision all the same. We thought we 
were accepting a mighty evil to escape from a 
mightier; we have tried to escape these might- 
ier evils by other means. We have dared to 
dream of the time when the sense of right, jus- 
tice, and human comradeship would be our 
shield and buckler, and that the last remedy 
of war would be no more needed. In this 



THE BLESSINGS OF— WAR 

dream we may have accused ourselves, in de- 
spondent hours, of being visionary and Uto- 
pian. We were, in fact, something much worse 
than that, as will speedily appear. 

Germany knows better about all this; at 
least, Prussia does ; or, at all events, the Prus- 
sian generals do — witness General von Bern- 
hardt whose book, " Germany and the Next 
War," is now enjoying a prominence which 
must be counted well deserved. The book, 
written some three years ago, is primarily 
an exhortation to the German nation; 
but other nations may naturally take an in- 
terest in it at the present time. Unless 
his translator (on whom my ignorance of Ger- 
man compels me to rely) wrongs him, the Gen- 
eral, though not a vivacious writer, is admir- 
ably lucid, and can say what he means as well 
as anybody. The Germans, he says in his In- 
troduction, "have to-day become a peace-loving 
— an almost too peace-loving — nation." (I do 
not know how far this reproach is just ; but, if 
it is, one may be allowed to be sorry for them 
just now.) "We are accustomed," he remarks 

9 



THE NEW (GERMAN) TESTAMENT 

regretfully, "to regard war as a curse, and re- 
fuse to recognize it as the greatest factor in 
the furtherance of culture and power." 

Again : "I must first of all examine the as- 
pirations for peace which seem to dominate 
our age, and threaten to poison the soul of 
the German people, according to their true 
moral significance. ' ' Poison ! A strong word ! 
We begin to see how wrong we have been in our 
notions — instilling this "poison" of a love of 
peace into the veins even of our children! 

"I must try to prove that war is not merely 
a necessary element in the life of nations, but 
an indispensable factor of culture, in which 
a true civilized nation finds the highest expres- 
sion of strength and vitality." That we took 
altogether too low a view of war is obvious. 
We have done nothing like justice to it. It is 
not a desperate remedy: it is an uncommonly 
good thing in itself. 

In fact, it is so good a thing that people who 
profess to hate it are mostly just humbugging. 
"Pacific ideals, to be sure, are seldom the real 
motive of their action. They usually employ 

10 



THE BLESSINGS OF— WAR 

the need of peace as a cloak under which to 
promote their own political aims. This was 
the real position of affairs at the Hague Con- 
ference, and this is also the meaning of the ac- 
tion of the United States of America, who in 
recent times earnestly tried to conclude treaties 
for the establishment of Arbitration Courts, 
first and foremost with England, but also with 
Japan, France, and Germany." America is 
pretty well shown up — with her talk about 
peace and brotherhood, and blood being thicker 
than water! 

"War is a biological necessity of the first 
importance, a regulative element in the life of 
mankind which cannot be dispensed with, since 
without it an unhealthy development will fol- 
low, which excludes every advancement of the 
race, and therefore all real civilization." And 
we dreamed of abolishing it — at all events, at 
restricting it to the narrowest limits and the 
most inevitable occasions ! Whereas it appears 
that, if we have not got a casus belli, we ought 
to find one as soon as possible. So long 
as the General has his way, we may eas- 

11 



THE NEW (GERMAN) TESTAMENT 

ily be presented with one without looking 
for it. 

But war is more than a biological necessity. 
"Might is at once the supreme right, and the 
dispute as to what is right is decided by the 
arbitrament of war. War gives a biologically 
just decision, since its decisions rest on the 
very nature of things." So that nationality, 
liberty, aggression, treaties ("scraps of pa- 
per"), etc., go for nothing, and we are just as 
wrong in considering them as in working or 
praying for peace. 

War has done very well already in the Gen- 
eral's hands; its virtues are not exhausted yet. 
"It is not only a biological law but a moral 
obligation and, as such, an indispensable fac- 
tor in civilization." 

Now even we, in spite of our mistakes, should 
not deny that war may be on. occasion a moral 
obligation, either toward ourselves or toward 
others. But, first, there is a vast difference be- 
tween "is" and "may be." The latter sug- 
gests the contingent and occasional, the former 
the normal and regular. The General's point 

12 



THE BLESSINGS OF— WAR 

of view is clear by his addition — "an indis- 
pensable factor in civilization." Indispensable 
factors are not things endured reluctantly and 
occasionally; they are permanent and neces- 
sary — and presumably not very rare — features. 
Such is the position war holds in the General's 
conception of civilization. He makes this en- 
tirely clear as he proceeds in a rapturous praise 
of the virtues of war, fortified by quotations 
from Treitschke, Schiller, and Frederick the 
Great. He makes it notably clear by his illu- 
minating observation that those virtues get 
no fair scope in "the pitiable existence of all 
small States." 

' ' The pitiable existence of all small States ! ' ' 
We may suppose that Belgium, the Nether- 
lands, and Switzerland (to name no more) will 
see themselves as they really are in the light 
of these words. Perhaps we — and they — may 
also suppose with some plausibility that the 
General, if he has his way, will be charitable 
enough to relieve them from their pitiable ex- 
istence as small States; he will put them out 
of their misery — as small States. 

13 



THE NEW (GERMAN) TESTAMENT 

What will he do with them if he has his way? 
He does not, so far as I can find, say explicitly 
— he is more occupied in disposing of greater 
Powers — but farther on in the book he remarks 
with much emphasis: "In the future the im- 
portance of Germany will depend on two 
points : firstly, how many millions of men in the 
world speak German; secondly, how many of 
them are politically members of the German 
Empire." In the light of this, and in view of 
the General's undoubted patriotism, it is not 
perhaps hard to conclude how the pitiable ex- 
istence of the small States is to be brought 
to a merciful conclusion. 

And to what end does the biological neces- 
sity work, the biologically just decisions tend? 
What is to be the reward of observing the 
moral obligation and of cherishing and promot- 
ing the indispensable factor in civilization? 
For the General as a German the answer is 
plain. "Thus alone," he says, "shall we dis- 
charge our great duties of the future, grow 
into a World Power, and stamp a great part 
of humanity with the impress of the German 

14 



THE BLESSINGS OF— WAR 

spirit." That is the answer for Germany — a 
vast and indefinite expansion of the German 
spirit, of the German culture of later days 
which has produced and which inspires the 
General's political philosophy. For Germany 
so far, so good. We understand the answer. 
It is frank and plain — and it does not take us 
by surprise. 

What is the answer for other nations? 

For the small nations we have seen it al- 
ready. They are to be stamped with the im- 
press of the German spirit; their "pitiable 
existences ' ' are to be ended. We may borrow 
a phrase current in another connection. A 
steam-roller is to be passed over them — the 
steam-roller, not of Russian troops but of 
Prussian notions; the steam-roller, not of a 
campaign but of a conception and a culture — 
the culture that fosters the General's philoso- 
phy and the Prussian military system; an end 
to their national existence, to their national 
ideals, to the rich diversity of civilization to 
which the world has owed so much and from 
which it had such hopes in the future! No 

15 



THE NEW (GERMAN) TESTAMENT 

independent voice is to be raised from the land 
that was the home of Ibsen, no independent 
dreams of beauty from the country that gave 
us Maeterlinck! When the steam-roller has 
passed nothing is to be heard but the accents 
of the culture which has produced the General's 
philosophy and inspired the Prussian military 
system. 

What is the answer for the great nations? 

For France? But we may leave France out. 
The General himself gives the answer. 
"France must be so completely crushed that 
she can never again come across our path." 
France is to be steam-rollered! And at least 
a pretty broad edge of the machine may be 
expected to pass over her Allies also. 

But what is the answer for the great nations 
not engaged in the war! Or are all to be 
engaged? Is the whole world to be stamped 
— and stamped out? Even the General can 
hardly expect that. Well, then, what is the 
prospect for these great nations and for the 
lands they people and administer? The Gen- 
eral's philosophy, though invented and pat- 

16 



THE BLESSINGS OF— WAR 

ented in Germany, can hardly be limited to 
these regions. If it be successful, other nations 
will help themselves to licenses for its employ- 
ment. They, too, will recognize the biological 
law; they, too, will seek, by that Might which 
is the supreme Right, biologically just deci- 
sions; they will not neglect the moral obliga- 
tion, nor suffer the indispensable factor in 
civilization to lie idle. They, too, converted by 
the General's philosophy, will seek war and 
ensue it. Because to the General's converts 
war is not a calamity which must be faced 
sometimes — which must happen sometimes — 
owing to human fault or frailty: it is a thing 
which ought to happen normally in the inter- 
ests of a nation's spirit and culture. 

Behold, then, the prospect that lies before 
the world if the General's philosophy triumphs 
in the schools, and the military system which 
it inspires repeats the triumph in the field! 
For the small nations extinction — political, in- 
tellectual, spiritual. For the great nations an 
endless strife, generation after generation of 
mankind locked in deadly and bloody struggles. 

17 



THE NEW (GERMAN) TESTAMENT 

And no end to it, no hope, no dream of an end 
to it ! For war will be not merely a thing which 
must happen : it will be a thing which ought to 
happen. It will not only be a necessity: it 
will also be an ideal, and he who prays, "Give 
peace in our time, Lord!" will be sinning 
against his country and his own soul. 

Whereupon that discredited creature, the 
Angel of Peace, will spread her wings, soar 
to the heavens to report the failure of her 
mission, and leave the earth to enjoy forever 
the blessings of war. 



18 



II 

GREAT BRITAIN'S BLUNDER 



n 

GREAT BRITAIN'S BLUNDER 

A MAN generally knows whether he is a 
knave or not, but generally does not 
know whether or not he is a fool. Hence he 
would sooner be called knave than fool. If 
he is a knave, he cannot much resent the accu- 
sation; if his conscience is clear, he dismisses 
it with a smile. But to taunt him with being a 
fool makes him uneasy and sets him on self- 
examination. 

It is the same with nations, and hence it 
comforts a nation to find its enemies imputing 
to it, not folly or blindness but a long-headed 
cunning, even though the cunning ascribed to 
it be untrammeled by scruples to a degree 
which it would not itself be willing for a mo- 
ment to admit. England had sooner be called 

perfidious than a blockhead. 

21 



THE NEW (GERMAN) TESTAMENT 

Her enemies, as a rule, fall in with her pref- 
erence, imputing to her a consistent, unscrupu- 
lous, and supremely able policy of self-interest 
which seems to Englishmen themselves as much 
above their intellectual capacity as it is below 
their most modest conception of their own 
morals. 

But England is not quite the perfect villain. 
She has had her lapses; she has missed her 
chance now and then. She has not always hit 
her man on the head when he was least able 
to hit back; she has not always stabbed him 
in the back when he was fighting somebody 
else in front — not always, however much, of 
course, she may, in certain eyes, under various 
fine pretexts about treaties and neutral rights, 
be doing it now. 

One sore lapse of this kind that notable ex- 
ponent of German policy and principles, 
General von Bernhardi, is good enough to 
point out to his countrymen and to us in his 
book " Germany and the Next War." He is 
much struck with it ; he refers to it more than 

once. Here are a couple of passages — I 

22 



GREAT BRITAIN'S BLUNDER 

quote from the English translation of the 
book: 

"Since England committed the unpardon- 
able blunder, from her point of view, of not 
supporting the Southern States in the Ameri- 
can War of Secession, a rival to England's 
world-wide Empire has appeared on the other 
side of the Atlantic in the form of the United 
States of North America, which are a grave 
menace to England's fortunes." 

Again: "This policy [i. e., the German pol- 
icy of not effecting ' ' a final settling of accounts 
with France" at a favorable moment] some- 
what resembles the supineness for which Eng- 
land has herself to blame, when she refused 
her assistance to the Southern States in the 
American War of Secession, and thus allowed 
a Power to arise, in the form of the United 
States of North America, which already, al- 
though barely fifty years have elapsed, threat- 
ens England's own position as a World 
Power." 

I am not old enough — just not old enough — 
to remember the War of Secession, but I have 

23 



THE NEW (GERMAN) TESTAMENT 

talked with many who remember those days 
well, and we have all read many books abont 
that troubled and momentous time. Everybody 
knows that there was a great deal of sympathy 
for the South in England, especially among 
the upper classes, even more powerful polit- 
ically then than now. Everybody knows that 
war nearly came about by reason of it, but was 
avoided — happily and mercifully avoided, as 
we Englishmen have been in the habit of say- 
ing, till General von Bernhardi came along to 
teach us to say "unhappily and stupidly 
evaded"! Everybody knows that in the end 
the preponderance of opinion in England im- 
posed, not intervention on the Northern side 
but a neutrality which left the sad but splendid 
conflict to be fought out without foreign inter- 
ference — to be fought out by men on both sides 
who believed that they fought in a righteous 
cause, for which they were ready and bounden, 
not only to lay down their own lives but to take 
the lives of their fellow-countrymen — aye, of 
their own brethren, if need be. History lays 
her wreath of laurel on the graves of the heroes 

24 



GREAT BRITAIN'S BLUNDER 

of the North and of the South alike. And the 
Great Republic lives. 

That was what Great Britain did. What 
does General von Bernhardi, with his Prussian 
politico-military philosophy and principles, say 
that she ought to have done — what only her 
supineness and unpardonable blundering pre- 
vented her from doing? For her there should 
have been no nonsense about which side was 
right, no nonsense about generous and disin- 
terested sympathy with the South 's strong 
Constitutional case and splendid pluck on the 
one side, or with the sentiment of national 
unity, the cause of the slaves, or the dogged 
and persevering valor which drew hearts to 
the other side. All these were simply irrele- 
vant. Great Britain — if she would not be su- 
pine and stupid — had simply to ask, "What 
will pay me best?" And simply to answer, 
"Helping the South." Why? "Because by 
helping the South I shall in the long run cripple 
both South and North. By helping one I shall 
hurt both." 

How were we to achieve that master-stroke 
25 



THE NEW (GERMAN) TESTAMENT 

of policy against a friendly and kindred peo- 
ple! Very simply. We were to provide the 
Federal States (the United States would no 
longer have existed!) with a neighbor — an 
armed and angry neighbor. The Confederate 
States a nation, perpetually a rival, always po- 
tentially a foe! Hatred and rivalry between 
themselves were to keep Americans busy, their 
hands filled with that, while the astute Brit- 
isher filled his pockets with the trade that his 
cousins had not time to attend to! 

Why were we so stupid? Why did we make 
the unpardonable blunder of not adopting a 
policy, so astute, so profitable, so thoroughly 
worthy of a great nation, claiming to be in the 
van of civilization and culture? Because this 
policy appears to be that which recommends 
itself, in the light of history, to what is the 
greatest and finest civilization of all — the pres- 
ent German variety. 

Well, we must concede this much to General 
von Bernhardi and his theory of our unpardon- 
able blunder: we did not adopt the policy be- 
cause, among other reasons, it never entered 

26 



GREAT BRITAIN'S BLUNDER 

our heads. There may have been a few 
Machiavellis (or Bernhardis) about, but our 
people as a whole were guided by their sym- 
pathies, by their prejudices if you will; the 
question of self-interest was not present to 
their minds. 

But if it had been? I think I know what 
the attitude of the British people would have 
been toward such a policy; but I have no de- 
sire to indulge in strong language about the 
moral and political principles which inspire the 
German (or perhaps I should say Prussian) 
statecraft of which the General is so distin- 
guished and resolute a champion. The impor- 
tant thing is that the free peoples of the world 
— the peoples themselves, but not merely their 
politicians and their professors — should under- 
stand what the canons of this statecraft are. 
When once the free peoples understand we are 
content to abide their verdict. 

For though I have chosen — and of course 
purposely chosen — an example of this state- 
craft which has a special interest for Ameri- 
cans as well as for ourselves, the question itself 

27 



THE NEW (GERMAN) TESTAMENT 

is a much wider one, and has an actual, not 
merely an historical, interest for all the na- 
tions, as well as for the combatants in the pres- 
ent great struggle. For this struggle, immense 
and terrible as it is, is but a step, an incident, 
in the world-policy which General von Bern- 
hardi expounds. If it ends as he would have 
it end, on his own principles his cry must still 
be "Onward!" 

The world is being asked to-day to choose 
between two conceptions of national policy and 
duty. There has been no more momentous 
question put to it since history began. And 
it must be answered. Quo Vadisf The ques- 
tion is put to the civilized world. 

Let us try to sketch, briefly and roughly, 
what has been among civilized peoples the 'ideal 
of national policy in international affairs in 
recent times. It is with ideals that we are 
dealing. No doubt all nations have occasion- 
ally sinned against the light, more or less pur- 
posely, more or less consciously, always (I 
think) in face of a strong protest from a strong 

minority of their own citizens, and generally 

28 



GREAT BRITAIN'S BLUNDER 

with a swift return to a worthier mind. What 
has been this ideal? 

The State is a trustee for its citizens. It is 
bound to assert, maintain, and promote their 
rights and their interests. Its first duty is to 
them; it must not, without their express sanc- 
tion, practice charity or benevolence to other 
nations at their expense. It is to guard also 
their honor and see that their voice in the 
counsels of the world receives the respect which 
is its due. But it is to exercise these functions 
with a due regard to the rights and legitimate 
interests of other nations. It is to observe, not 
only international law but international morals 
— and even international manners. It is to 
respect the national life and the freedom of 
its neighbors. Though vigilant in its own 
cause, it is yet to be a good member of the 
community of nations. 

Something like this, perhaps, is what an av- 
erage citizen of a free and civilized country 
expects of his Government in dealing with 
other civilized countries. The case of bar- 
barous countries, with their peculiar (and very 

29 



THE NEW (GERMAN) TESTAMENT 

difficult) moral problems, need not here detain 
us. As between civilized nations something 
like this is, if not a realized standard, at least 
a possible and perhaps not distant ideal, some- 
thing at which we have been aiming and toward 
which we conceived ourselves to be progress- 
ing — in spite of occasional backslidings, of 
which we have been very acutely conscious in 
the case of our neighbors, and perhaps some- 
times a little suspicious even as regards our 
own proceedings. 

But how stands Germany toward this ideal 
— modern Germany, the German Empire un- 
der Prussian hegemony and Prussian inspira- 
tion? She gives it the go-by altogether. She 
gives the go-by to the rights of her neighbors. 
Persuaded apparently by her philosophers and 
historians that she possesses a particular 
brand of "culture" which is far superior to 
any other in the world, she sees her duty toward 
the community of nations as consisting solely 
in compelling as many of them as she can to 
become, willy-nilly, partakers of her culture — 
in "stamping [as General von Bernhardi says] 

30 



GREAT BRITAIN'S BLUNDER 

a great part of humanity with the impress of 
the German spirit." In the pursuit of this 
end war is, we are told, not only a necessity 
but a duty, a moral obligation and a condition 
of national well-being. "The inevitableness, 
the idealism, and the blessing of war, as an in- 
dispensable and stimulating law of develop- 
ment, must be repeatedly emphasized. ' ' Might 
is the supreme right, victory the supreme and 
sufficient justification. German culture must 
spread. It can spread only through German 
power. And German power depends "on two 
points: firstly, how many millions of men in 
the world speak German; secondly, how many 
of them are politically members of the German 
Empire." And there are not nearly enough 
at present — in General von Bernhardi's 
opinion. 

Nothing limits the right to bring about this 
German ideal. It is above all other rights; 
it is a Super-Right. No plea of nationality, 
of freedom, of long prescription, of the desire 
of the governed, of international law, or of 
express treaty can bind or overrule it. On 

31 



THE NEW (GERMAN) TESTAMENT 

the contrary, it overrules them all. Salus 
populi, suprema lex. No doubt. But the sal- 
vation of the German people seems quite in- 
compatible with the permanent or secure salva- 
tion of anybody else! 

Well, you may call this new German ideal 
what you please. You may call it grandiose 
and dazzling. You may call it immoral and 
unscrupulous. If you are at all acquainted 
with " cultures," ancient and modern, which 
are not conceived on the lines of this new 
German "culture," you may call it impu- 
dent and absurd. But there is one thing 
you must call this ideal, and that is — dan- 
gerous. 

Such part of the globe as it cannot make a 
German province it inevitably makes an armed 
camp. 

If proof of this be needed — though, indeed, 
the proof of it starts to the eyes of any nation 
that does not wish to become a German prov- 
ince if it can help it — let us go back to Eng- 
land's "unpardonable blunder," and try to see 
what would have happened if she had not com- 

32 



GREAT BRITAIN'S BLUNDER 

mitted it — if, on the contrary, she had sup- 
ported the Southern States against the North. 
Of course we must assume — though it is a con- 
siderable assumption — that her intervention 
would have been successful, that with her help 
the Southern States would have succeeded in 
establishing and maintaining their independ- 
ence. As a result, where there are now the 
United States of America, there would be two 
independent nations — and of course, on Ger- 
man principles, armed nations, each trying to 
be stronger than the other, to get the better of 
the other, perhaps to impose (more Ger- 
manico) their "culture" on the other. Herein, 
says General von Bernhardi, would lie the tri- 
umph of British policy. The Northern nation 
and the Southern nation, as busy with one 
another as were the proverbial Kilkenny cats, 
would have no surplus time or energy to spend 
in interfering with the designs or the prosper- 
ity of Great Britain. The North might hate, 
but she would be impotent. The South might 
forget her gratitude (the General cannot af- 
ford, on his principles, to rely on national grat- 

33 



THE NEW (GERMAN) TESTAMENT 

itude), but she would have her hands full all 
the same. 

But still, is the General quite so right as 
he thinks? Could England be sure of being 
able to stand by smiling — and raking in the 
dollars? If gratitude can be forgotten, so can 
an old quarrel — when it pays to forget it. 
Would the British Government be safe in ig- 
noring the chance that some day the North 
would say to the South: "Our profit doesn't 
lie in keeping up this old quarrel or in worry- 
ing one another. Let us do a deal. You shall 
be free to 'expand' as much as you like south- 
ward — in Mexico, in Central America, where 
you will, down there. In return let us be free 
to expand northward. We shall both find that 
a much better game than cutting one another's 
throats for England's profit"? 

If England did sufficient justice to America's 
common sense to conceive of such an arrange- 
ment as even possible, what must be her im- 
perative safeguard against the possibility? 
There is only one answer : an armed Canada — 
Canada armed to the teeth along her immense 

34 



GREAT BRITAIN'S BLUNDER 

frontier, armed on the Great Lakes, and, pend- 
ing at least a fuller growth of her strength, 
demanding and engrossing no small part of 
the resources of the Mother Country for her 
defense. 

Whether this development would be better 
for England than the present state of affairs 
I will not discuss. I think I hardly need. Any- 
how, it is enough for my purpose to point out 
by this example whither Bernhardian princi- 
ples and policy tend. 

There are two friendly peoples now on the 
continent of North America. If England had 
not committed her "unpardonable blunder," 
there would have been three armed camps. 

So the new German ideal works out in this 
example. And it would work out in the same 
way in others. The nation that will not be a 
German province must be an armed camp. 

When the free nations realize this they will 
make their choice between the two ideals of 
national policy in international affairs which 
are to-day presented for their consideration. 



35 



Ill 

PAPER BULWARKS 



Ill 

PAPER BULWARKS 

SURELY no statesman holding high and re- 
sponsible place ever let the cat out of the 
bag so sompletely as the German Imperial 
Chancellor in his now world-famous phrase 
about the "scrap of paper"! 

Of course the appearance of the animal 
caused no surprise in Germany — no surprise, 
at least, to the enthusiastic disciples of 
Treitschke and Bernhardi, who number, as Pro- 
fessor Cramb tells us, their tens of thousands 
in Germany. They knew the color of the ani- 
mal quite well beforehand ; they knew what its 
claws were like — to say nothing of its whiskers, 
which must surely be pictured with a truly 
Imperial upward twist ! Cats of the same color 
stalk through the writings of their school of 

39 



THE NEW (GERMAN) TESTAMENT 

thought. "Neutrality is a paper bulwark," 
says Bernhardt Treaties hold good rebus sic 
stantibus — which, if you drag it from what Gib- 
bon calls "the decent obscurity of a learned 
language," means "while perfectly conven- 
ient." No, the color of the Chancellor's cat was 
no surprise to them. They were quite familiar 
with the breed. 

And they are surprised — genuinely sur- 
prised, I believe, though at first sight it seems 
difficult to believe — that anybody else should 
feel differently. They are so imbued with the 
virtue of their own doctrine — with its ' ' religion 
of valor" and its "return to Odin," and so 
forth — that they are unable to understand how 
it can be questioned save by fools, hypocrites, 
or cowards. They do not think the British 
fools; they do think them hypocrites; they do 
think them cowards — or did. And thus in their 
eyes the position we profess as to Belgian neu- 
trality is abundantly explained. 

But there are signs that they are beginning 
to see that the color and claws of the Chan- 
cellor's cat are rather alarming to other peo- 

40 



PAPER BULWARKS 

pie — rather alarming, or at least rather star- 
tling, to the free peoples, large and small; 
rather questionable to men and women who 
have not returned to Odin, but still take their 
standards from another source of religious and 
ethical inspiration. So there is an attempt to 
put rather a different color on the cat, perhaps 
to thrust it back into the bag — half-way back, 
anyhow, so that claws and whiskers may be 
hidden, even if the color remains obstinately 
apparent. Accordingly, arguments of other 
than the plain Treitschke-Bernhardi order are 
adduced by German writers and their apolo- 
gists. 

One of them takes the familiar tu quoque 
form — the old "You're another!" of our child- 
ish days. If Germany had not violated the 
neutrality of Belgium, France and Great 
Britain would have. 

As to this, it may be observed first — and 
the remark applies to both Powers — that such 
counter-charges are easy to bring — so easy that 
they carry no weight, unless evidence in sup- 
port of them is produced. Such evidence the 

41 



THE NEW (GERMAN) TESTAMENT 

German Government has declared itself to pos- 
sess. It should be challenged to produce it. 
Until it does so, the presumption would seem 
to be that this retort is designed for consump- 
tion by those, in Germany itself and in neutral 
countries, whose stomachs find the undiluted 
doctrine of the scrap of paper rather strong 
meat, difficult of digestion and threatening, per- 
haps, after-effects of an unpleasant order. 

But with regard to Great Britain, at least, 
we may say more than this. The charge, if 
advanced in good faith and sincerity, shows 
an astonishing ignorance of the state of opinion 
in that country. It is safe to say that no 
British Government (and, I may add in pass- 
ing, least of all a Liberal Government, depend- 
ing so largely as it does on pacific opinion and 
on the support of the friends of the smaller 
nations) would or could have taken such a 
step. It would almost certainly have been sui- 
cidal to the Government itself. It would cer- 
tainly have rent public opinion in twain and 
fatally impaired the support which the nation 
at large now accords enthusiastically to the 

42 



PAPER BULWARKS 

policy of his Majesty's Government. It would, 
in the eyes of the greater part of the nation— 
I believe in the eyes of practically the whole 
nation — have stamped on our friendship with 
France a shameful and fatal stain. We could 
not have fought the war in good heart after it. 
Let us pass to another argument employed 
by the apologists, and deserving of notice for 
its ingenuity at least. The "scrap of paper" 
—or, in other and more formal language, the 
Quintuple Treaty of London (April 19, 1839) 
between Great Britain, Austria, France, Rus- 
sia, and Prussia on the one hand, and the 
Netherlands on the other— was not, it is said, 
in its true nature and essence a Treaty with 
Belgium, but a Treaty about Belgium. The 
only rights or obligations created by it were 
mutual rights and obligations between the con- 
tracting parties. These came to an end, ipso 
facto, with the existence of a state of war 
between the contracting parties. And Belgium 
was left quite out in the cold! 

This somewhat technical argument takes us 
a long way from the beautiful simplicity of the 

43 



THE NEW (GERMAN) TESTAMENT 

"scrap-of -paper" doctrine. But it is worth a 
moment's examination. 

What does Article VII of the Quintuple 
Treaty say? "Belgium shall form a State 
independent and perpetually neutral. It is un- 
der obligation to observe neutrality toward all 
other States." 

Now it cannot be denied that Belgium was 
in form a signatory to the Treaty with the five 
Powers. But more than this : in substance also 
she was plainly a party, and for the reason 
that the Treaty not only grants her a right — 
the right of immunity from attack, but im- 
poses on her an obligation — the obligation not 
to attack others. If she observes the obliga- 
tion, she is entitled to rely on the right. A 
promise is given to her on a consideration. 
She has conformed to her obligation; she has 
carried out the condition. With what face is 
she now to be told that the right is illusory 
because she was not a formal party to the 
Treaty? 

Moreover, against what contingency was the 
Treaty directed? In what case was its opera- 

44 



PAPER BULWARKS 

tion contemplated? Precisely in the case which 
arose in 1870 and which has now arisen again 
in 1914 — the case of war between two or more 
of the contracting parties. It is a pretty argu- 
ment which tells us that a Treaty is abrogated 
by the existence of the precise state of affairs 
which it was intended to meet and under which 
alone it could have any virtue or effect! 
Whatever apologists in a tight place may be 
forced to do, statesmen do not stultify them- 
selves in that fashion. 

Finally, if Germany either would or could 
have relied on any such self-destructive plea 
as this, she has a witness against her, whom 
she herself cannot refuse to hear, whom the 
rest of the world was accustomed to hear with 
a deference not unmingled with apprehension. 
That witness is the greatest of Dr. von Beth- 
mann-Hollweg's predecessors. 

When in 1870 trouble came about between 
France and Prussia, Great Britain took a very 
definite line about the neutrality of Belgium. 
She plainly intimated that, in the case of one 
belligerent respecting, while the other violated, 

45 



THE NEW (GERMAN) TESTAMENT 

that neutrality, the United Kingdom would 
take part with the belligerent respecting the 
neutrality against the other. And treaties in 
this sense were made with France and with 
Prussia — in which latter, by the way, the King 
of Prussia expressed himself as being desirous 
of "recording by a solemn act his fixed deter- 
mination to maintain the independence and 
neutrality of Belgium as provided in Article 
VII of the Treaty signed in London on the 
19th April, 1839" — our old friend the "scrap 
of paper." 

But what is important for our point is that 
Prince Bismarck, acting for his Sovereign, not 
only gave assurances to and made a treaty 
with Great Britain. He gave assurances to 
Belgium also. And the terms of the assurance 
are worth setting out here: — 

Berlin - , 

le 22 Juillet, 1870. 
M. LE MlNISTRE, 

Confirmant mes assurances verbales, 
j'ai l'honneur de vous donner par ecrit 
la declaration, surabondante en presence 
46 



PAPER BULWARKS 

des Traites en vigueur, que la Confedera- 
tion du Nord et ses allies respecteront la 
neutrality de la Belgique, bien entendu 
qu'elle sera respectee par 1 'autre partie 
belligerante. 

Agreez, etc., 

Von Bismakck. 
Baron Nothomb. 

Which being translated runs: "Confirming 
my verbal assurance, I have the honor to give 
a declaration in writing — superfluous having 
regard to the Treaties in existence — that the 
Confederation of the North and its allies will 
respect the neutrality of Belgium, it being well 
understood that that neutrality will be re- 
spected by the other belligerent Power. ' ' 

And who was this Baron Nothomb, to whom 
this assurance is given! Not the representa- 
tive of any of the Powers signing the Treaty, 
but the Belgian Minister in Berlin. 

So that our witness, Prince Bismarck him- 
self, plainly recognizes two things: — 

1. The validity of the Treaty of 1839. 

2. The fact that not only the signatory Pow- 

47 



THE NEW (GERMAN) TESTAMENT 

ers but also Belgium has a right to ask and 
receive assurances that the Treaty will be re- 
spected, that her right will be protected if her 
obligation be observed. 

What was Prince Bismarck's view in 1870 
is Great Britain's view in 1914. Perhaps that 
is enough to say about it. 

But since we have been talking about 1870 
it may be of interest to set out another docu- 
ment dating from the same time. It is not 
long, and recent events give it interest. We 
have seen what the German Imperial Chan- 
cellor thinks of the Treaty ; we have seen what 
his great predecessor thought of it; let us see 
how the Belgians themselves looked at it in 
that same year 1870. 

Here is the copy of an address from the 
Mayor and Communal Council of the City of 
Brussels to Queen Victoria, dated the 30th 
August, 1870. It relates to Great Britain's in- 
timation — already referred to — that if one bel- 
ligerent respected, while the other violated, 
Belgium's neutrality, she would take part with 
the former against the latter: — 

48 



PAPER BULWARKS 

MAYOR OF BRUSSELS TO QUEEN 
VICTORIA 

30th August, 1870 

[Translation.] 

Youe Majesty, — 

The great and noble people over whose 
destinies you preside has just given a fur- 
ther proof of its benevolent sentiments 
toward our country. 

In the midst of the grave events which 
shake the foundations of ancient Europe 
the Government of Your Majesty, con- 
scious of the obligations contracted by the 
Signatories to the Treaty of 1839, has 
taken the initiative in approaching the 
Powers which are parties to that Treaty, 
with a view to obtaining a new and effica- 
cious confirmation of the neutrality of Bel- 
gium. 

The voice of the English nation has been 
heard above the din of arms: it has as- 
serted the principles of justice and right. 

Next to the unalterable attachment of 
the Belgian people to their independence, 
the liveliest sentiment which fills their 
49 



THE NEW (GERMAN) TESTAMENT 

hearts is that of an imperishable grati- 
tude. 

We think that Your Majesty and the 
people of Great Britain will value the evi- 
dence of their gratitude now offered in the 
name of a nation, free and prosperous, 
which has cultivated with wisdom and 
moderation for nearly half a century insti- 
tutions similar to those of the United 
Kingdom. 

The Municipal Council of the Capital ex- 
press the unanimous sentiments of the 
population in assuring Your Majesty of its 
profound and respectful gratitude. 

Such is the light in which the people of Bel- 
gium looked at the "scrap of paper." And 
if the terms in which the Mayor of Brussels 
refers to the people of Great Britain are so 
handsome that an Englishman blushes to drag 
them from the archives of the past and repeat 
them here — well, it can only be said that it 
is easy to suppose circumstances under which 
he would have had to blush over them much 
more severely, and under which the Mayor of 
Brussels could not have used to King George 

50 



PAPER BULWARKS 

the words which his predecessor addressed to 
Queen Victoria. He must have used words 
extremely different — and better, perhaps, left 
to the imagination. 

After all, it is pleasant to think that the King 
and people of Great Britain could still look 
that old Mayor of Brussels in the face. As in 
1870, so now they are giving a new and, please 
God, an efficacious confirmation of the neutral- 
ity of Belgium — so that some day, before long 
perhaps, the present Mayor of Brussels may 
endorse some of the things his predecessor 
said. And praise from the gallant M. Max 
would be praise indeed ! 



51 



IV 

EMPIRE— AND LIBERTY? 



IV 

EMPIRE— AND LIBERTY? 

THERE are many things which General 
von Bernhardi, whose book is by now 
familiar to most of us by repute at least, is 
willing to promise the German people if only 
they will fall down and worship the ideal of 
national life and policy which he sets before 
them. It is true that the things belong for 
the moment to other people; but that can soon 
be put right. The fruit — French plums or 
British peaches — is ripe ; it needs only a strong 
and resolute hand to pluck it. 

But among all his promises there is one omis- 
sion. I do not know whether or how far it 
may seem a remarkable omission in German 
eyes; to an Englishman it certainly appears 
so, and, as I should suppose, would so appear 

55 



THE NEW (GERMAN) TESTAMENT 

to a Frenchman or an American. Among all 
the rewards of victory which he dangles be- 
fore the eyes of the conquering Germans, the 
irresistible race which is to have so much to 
say about other people's affairs, we look in 
vain for any promise that they are to have 
what an American, a Frenchman, or an Eng- 
lishman would consider an adequate control of 
their own! 

On the contrary, General von Bernhardi dis- 
courages any such idea — and that in round 
terms. "No people," he remarks bluntly, "is 
so little qualified as the German to direct its 
own destinies, whether in a parliamentarian or 
in a republican Constitution; to no people is 
the customary liberal pattern so inappropriate 
as to us. A glance at the Eeichstag will show 
how completely this conviction, which is forced 
on us by a study of German history, holds 
good to-day." 

No people so little qualified to direct its own 
destinies! An extreme saying! Not even 
those haughty Servians'? Not the Turks? Not 
the Albanians, who so failed to appreciate a 

56 



EMPIRE— AND LIBERTY? 

German prince? If what the General says be 
true, it would suggest to an Englishman — and 
not less to a citizen of other countries whose 
peoples do " direct their own destinies" — that 
the German "culture" had broken down some- 
where. Because to such a citizen — even as to 
an Athenian of old — a "culture" that leaves 
the citizens unfit for and incapable of self-gov- 
ernment fails in the first and most vital func- 
tion of a national culture. 

No doubts on this score afflict the General. 
He goes on to point out, quite contentedly, that 
1 i the German people has always been incapable 
of great acts for the common interest except 
under the irresistible pressure of external con- 
ditions, as in the rising of 1813, or under the 
leadership of powerful personalities. . . . " 
"We must take care, then," he proceeds, "that 
such men are assured the possibility of acting 
with a confident and free hand to accomplish 
great ends through and for our people. With- 
in these limits it is in harmony with the Ger- 
man character to allow personality to have a 
free course for the fullest development of all 

57 



THE NEW (GERMAN) TESTAMENT 

individual forces and capacities, of all spirit- 
ual, scientific, and artistic aims." 

It sounds very fine. What does it come to! 
Powerful Personalities, acting with confident 
and free hands, are to do the governing — to 
direct the destinies — while the German people, 
of all the most unfitted for this task, are to 
develop these capacities in intellectual pursuits 
"within these limits" — that is to say, subject 
to not interfering with the confident and free 
hands of the Powerful Personalities. That is 
put forward as the ideal for the nation whose 
ideals are to direct and govern as much of the 
world as possible. 

What is this but the watchword — or the 
catchword — of every "benevolent despotism," 
of every "enlightened aristocracy," since his- 
tory began 1 "Occupy yourselves with the arts 
and sciences — leave politics to me," has been 
the command of the despot (whether an indi- 
vidual or a caste) through all the ages. It is 
the command of General von Bernhardi and his 
caste to his countrymen to-day. Will they — 

do they — accept it? 

58 



EMPIRE— AND LIBERTY? 

A citizen of a free and self-governing coun- 
try — in the full sense in which an American, 
a Frenchman, or an Englishman (to name no 
other nationalities, though, happily, there are 
many others who could be named) — finds it 
hard to believe that they do — at all events, that 
they will — accept it permanently, for good and 
all. "You cannot govern yourselves — you are 
the most hopeless of all nations at that. But 
we — the Powerful Prussian Personalities — will 
govern you with confident and free hands, and 
govern half the world for you into the bargain. 
Only keep your hands off politics — and we will 
fill them with the rich fruits of world power!" 

It is a splendid bribe ; that cannot be denied 
— panem et circenses with a vengeance! — and 
offered, not this time to the demoralized mob 
of a decadent capital, as the Caesars offered 
"bread and game" to the rabble of Rome, but 
to the whole of a civilized, cultured, intellectual 
people — to the people who, however incapable 
of directing their own destinies, are chosen by 
the German god to control the destinies of so 
many other people! 

59 



THE NEW (GERMAN) TESTAMENT 

A big bribe, indeed! Nobody can appre- 
ciate its magnitude better than the nations 
which (if all goes well) are to have the privi- 
lege of providing the wherewithal to enable 
the General and his friends to redeem their 
promises. 

Can the General and his friends ' ' deliver the 
goods"? Will the German people, dazzled as 
they now seem to be by the glittering prize 
held before their eyes, be permanently content 
with the barter of liberty at home for Empire 
abroad? I will not attempt to answer these 
questions. Time must give the answer — time 
and the stricken field. Let us assume the an- 
swers that the General would like. In the 
words of his famous alternative, let it be — for 
the sake of this argument — world power for 
Germany, and not downfall; and we will stifle 
the mild suggestion that a via media was really 
open to Germany if she had been content to 
take it. 

On this hypothesis, then, what is the look-out 
for the rest of the world, and especially for 
that ''great part of humanity" which is to be 

60 



EMPIRE— AND LIBERTY? 

"stamped with the impress of the German 
spirit, ' ' that spirit which, among its other mani- 
festations, manifests a willingness to accept 
Bernhardi's bribe on Bernhardi's terms? 

Well, anyhow, the great part of humanity, 
when duly stamped, can hardly expect to be 
better off than the Germans themselves. What 
is sauce for the conquering goose (I mean no 
disrespect by recalling the old proverb) will 
certainly be sauce for the conquered gander. 
If the home Empire is unfit to direct its own 
destinies, the outlying dominions will not be 
allowed to direct theirs. That seems plain 
without much argument — indeed, to suggest 
anything else might well set the home Empire 
on a reconsideration of its bargain. What the 
outlying dominions — the bases of the world 
power — must expect is clearly an export of 
Powerful Personalities to direct their destinies 
with confident and free hands. Other Powers 
send out Governors : the British Empire does. 
But the German Empire overseas is not to be 
like the British Empire overseas ; for this lat- 
ter we know from Bernhardi's master — the 

61 



THE NEW (GERMAN) TESTAMENT 

great Treitschke himself — is a sham, "wholly 
a sham, wholly rotten." These powerful per- 
sonalities will not be the representatives of a 
Constitutional Monarch, presiding over but not 
ruling free and self-governing communities. 
They will be of the same type as the rulers at 
home. The bargain which is good enough for 
the home Empire will be good enough for the 
German Dominions overseas. 

They promise to be pleasant, restful neigh- 
bors, these German Dominions overseas, with 
their destinies directed by Powerful Personal- 
ities trained in Bernhardian ideas and Bern- 
hardian views of the German "Mission." 
Their Right will be Might, their Religion will 
be Valor, their Treaties — but we know by now 
all about that. They are to be Little Berlins 
— the description has already been applied by 
a writer of authority to the German colonies 
existing before the war. They are to be repro- 
ductions of the Great Berlin, of the German 
Empire at home — the German Empire of Bern- 
hardi's and Treitschke 's ideal — where the na- 
tion is the Army, and the Army is the nation, 

62 



EMPIRE— AND LIBERTY? 

and war is a moral obligation, where the creed 
is ''Live dangerously" and the Beatitude 
" Blessed are the warmakers, for they shall be 
called, if not the children of Jahve, the children 
of Odin, who is greater than Jahve." And it 
may be supposed their Litany will run, "To 
battle, and murder, and sudden death, Good 
Lord, deliver us" — and, a fortiori, "our ene- 
mies ! ' ' 

One closes General von Bernhardi's book 
with a strange mixture of feelings. Its atti- 
tude and its teaching — the whole spirit which 
informs and animates it — seem at once so for- 
midable and so preposterous. It is like some 
nightmare in which everything is turned upside 
down, all values changed, all standards re- 
versed — a sort of "Alice in Wonderland" po- 
litical faith. If it were all only a bad dream! 
And surely that is what we may hope and pray 
that it is for the German peoples themselves, 
a bad dream from which they will one day 
awake — awake to repudiate Bernhardi's bribe 
and Bernhardi's bargain, to take their own 
destinies into their own hands, and to assume 

63 



THE NEW (GERMAN) TESTAMENT 

their proper and honorable place in the com- 
munity of nations. 

Such an awakening must, of a surety, be 
forced on Germany some day — whether from 
without or from within. The hope and the 
faith in such an awakening are the silver lining 
to the dark cloud of strife which broods over 
the world to-day. 

But whatever my feelings may and must be 
at the present time about the nation to which he 
belongs, I cannot part from the General him- 
self wholly in anger. He is, all said and done, 
a gallant controversialist. His is the massed 
frontal attack; there are no subtle attempts to 
outflank your principles or get round your ap- 
prehensions. He goes full tilt at them — horse, 
foot, and artillery. There never was such a 
man for saying things which you might imagine 
that he would be content with thinking — never 
such a man for telling you exactly what you 
may expect if he has his way with you! In 
virtue of these characteristics he is very valu- 
able at this juncture of affairs. Every man 
and woman of independent mind should read, 

64 



EMPIRE— AND LIBERTY? 

mark, learn, and inwardly digest him. The 
wider circulation his book obtains and the more 
students he has the better will the world under- 
stand what this war is really about, and what 
turns on the issue of it. Convinced of this, I 
offer him a humble and unsolicited but most 
sincere advertisement. 



65 



